Oxygen cylinders needed

By YVONNE KAMBIBEL
THE East Sepik health authority (PHA) says it has sufficient supplies of medical drugs except for oxygen cylinders.
Chief executive officer Mathew Kaluvia said the main hospital at Boram had a shortage of oxygen cylinders.
“We ran out of oxygen cylinders towards the end of January due to delays in shipment from Lae,” he said.
Kaluvia said 30 oxygen cylinders were supposed to be sent to Wewak, however, following the shipment delay, an urgent letter had been sent to Health secretary Dr Osborne Liko and 15 cylinders were sent from Lae to Bogia in Madang and were transported by speed boats to Wewak.
“We need more cylinders at the general hospital,” he said. Kaluvia said the main hospital served patients from all six districts in the province.
He said the hospital also recorded an increase in number of trauma patients in recent months.
As such, Kaluvia said there was a need for more size G and E oxygen cylinders at the hospital to treat Coronavirus (Covid-19) patients, those at the theatre and also traumatised patients. “For size G cylinders, we always get 61 cylinders, but we have requested for 50 more while for size E, we get 28, but have requested for 58 more because the hospital needs that many cylinders to cater for its patients’ needs,” he said.
Kaluvia said the PHA had bought some oxygen cylinders from a supermarket in Wewak while awaiting for the shipment from Lae.